For the memories shared,
For the times that you cared,
For the moments you ignore,
For the actions I abhore,
For the time that is lost,
For the vast emotional cost,
For the death in your eyes,
For all of the silly little lies,
For the titles I gave you,
For the privilege of the few,
For you throwing it in my face,
For giving up in the first place,
For the choices you’ve made,
For all the love to finally fade,
For the milestones you miss,
For the final goodbye kiss,
For all of the years,
For all of the tears,
For all of the pain,
For all of the rain,
For the distance you now run,
For the person you’ve become.

This weekend has possibly been the most tiring of my life. Saturday AM I got to the flat I usually rent out, painting and well, painting.

This morning (still there) I was on the phone standing in what used to be my bedroom and trying not to lean against the wet wall, when I noticed that there was a patch untouched by the magnolia paint. After the initial thought of ‘Better get that later’, I then started to think about all the memories that I had spent my weekend painting over.

That sounds really corny!

It wasn’t quite the cliche of as I put on the paint it was like painting over my memory, no, but it was odd standing there. There was just this moment after seeing the patch of unpainted plaster that then I glanced down at the carpet. It’s an awful thin purple which never matched the room and still doesn’t.

Suddenly I saw this photo of my friend that I took as she stood in the doorway ready for a night out. It seems like so long ago, but such a part of my life even though I only lived in the place for two years. Maybe it’s because every room was so filled with things that made the flat mine and my husband’s, the bedroom least of all actually. Now everytime I visit, it doesn’t seem like mine (maybe the kitchen and bathroom slightly) because a home isn’t just the walls and floor – it’s the furniture and trinkets, the photo frames and ornaments.

In that random moment as my the image of the photo of my friend popped into my mind, it kinda felt like mine again.

I haven’t lived there for two and a half years, yet everything there seemed so familiar. I guess the area always will, but maybe next time the flat won’t. It’s all just a blank canvas now for someone else and their life. For however long their tenancy is!

I don’t know what’s been up with me for the past week or so; I just haven’t really done much in the evenings whatsoever and this blog has suffered. My apologies!

Hopefully, that little blip of an odd mood is over and I’m focused again here. To celebrate me resuming normal service, today’s blog is kinda about love. You might think it’s just because tomorrow is Valentine’s day, but it kind of isn’t. Although it kind of is.

I haven’t called today’s entry The Seven Year Itch because my husband is on the verge of having an affair (realistically, how would I know what’s going on in his head/heart?) or because I’m suffering the urge to move on from the situation. Seven years ago on the second Monday in February (it was the 14th and, therefore, Valentine’s day), I followed my usual evening routine as if it were simply any other work day.

This included heading to my friend’s home for them to get changed before watching a bit of TV and then safely escorting me home. Except on that Monday evening, completely ignorant of the Saint, we settled down to watch a DVD and then I didn’t go home.

I won’t give it all away, much like seven years ago when I didn’t give it all away that night, but needless to say that was the beginning of a new relationship for me. One that was completely different to the ones before.

Boyfriend number one was older than me, and I was far more naive than my age should have allowed me. During and after all the years with him, he managed to convince me that I could do no better than him. We argued and fought. A lot. And it wasn’t the nice kind of bickering that’s still present with my husband now.

Boyfriend number two was a rich, attractive, drunk who turned out to have serious issues and could not let go. He was the only person I ever dumped. He was determined that I would start wearing heels, skirts and make up, that I would act how he wanted, move where he wanted us to live, live in his life. Perhaps if I’d have been stronger, the relationship could have worked and I could have fought my corner. But Number One had made me eager to find someone, anyone to love the unloveable me.

Boyfriend number three was less a boyfriend and more an older man with whom there could never be any future. He was the object of my crush and, for someone who had been convinced they could not be loved, who had been told their future was mapped out, someone with no future, no love, simply desire, it was what I needed then.

Boyfriend number four was the guy from work who incredibly kindly walked me home every night. I saw him as a friend, assumed he saw me as simply a friend. He may or may not have been lying, but after that DVD on Valentine’s night, we were not just friends. He understood Number One who had dragged down my self esteem. He understood Number Two who had wanted to mould me into the perfect little wife. He understood Number Three that had boosted my confidence. And he understood that I needed time.

It may not have started in any sort of normal way for a relationship, but, as I sit here, seven years later on the eve of Valentine’s with a husband playing some silly game like Angry Birds, it was the perfect conclusion to the first three. I have no desire or urge to change the situation. And he’d be too scared to have an affair!

I booked my early summer holiday last weekend. After spending the week after Christmas trawling through my holiday guides, buying a few more and picking up brochures, I set my mind on Crete. I then decided on something a little different for my Monday Memories category because there’s not much about my recent travels (or older travels) on here.

Apparently I went to Crete when I was very little – far too little to remember, although we do have photos of me on a wind-surfer with some man. Don’t ask!

It’s quite exciting really – I’ll be able to cross off another of my Greek Island list and some more ancient Greek sites. For my honeymoon, my husband and I went to Egypt and Athens for all the sites. After the amazing Athens, last year I picked Rhodes and I was so impressed.

Rhodes old town is a Medieval town dating back to the Knights of St John and is technically too “late” for the time periods I love, but whilst there I was stunned and fell in love. People still live in the tiny homes built originally hundreds of years ago with the thinnest “roads” I have ever seen. It’s mainly all cobbled and the rows of buildings are strengthened by arches across the roads. It’s a fantastic thing to see, made even more crazy looking by the lack of cars aside from some very custom built ones.

Street of the Knights in Rhodes Old Town

The moat is dry, but there are still bridges and gates leading into the town and it’s not hard to imagine it in its heyday – a true fortified city. I was lucky enough to have two afternoons free time to wander around and only got caught in a bit of rain once! There are some older sites hiding in there, too, but most of it in the main town got built over and people still live there so they can’t go excavating. The museums were a bit of a let down, but were a distraction from the rain.

One of the bridges and gates into the city - possibly St John's

Before we went out there, I had already booked an afternoon and evening trip to Rhodes Old Town and a morning trip to Lindos to satisfy my “ancient” needs. Lindos is this amazingly tall little town, which at the bottom has windy little thin blocks of shops and homes again. Similar to Rhodes Town, it’s very odd walking around it in these narrow little lanes which to the inhabitants are main streets. It was a lot like little market areas here, but their town!

The overview of Lindos village from the acropolis 125m above it. It was among one of the most sacred sites in the ancient world.

Part of Lindos is from the Knights era, including the steps up it. I have to admit that I don’t mind being up high, but I don’t really like getting up there and walking the sometimes smooth steps with no railings and only a stumble away was a bit scary. Eventually you get up to the top and through the more “modern” areas to find yourself at the top and presented with the acropolis. It was that stuff that I went for!

Just some of the stairs leading up to the acropolis at Lindos

We went in April, over Easter, and so the weather wasn’t amazing – rain and cloud on and off. But, what this also meant was barely anyone there so photos of popular sites with no one else in and not having to struggle with the high summer temperatures and trying to climb to the top of anything. The pool was a bit chilly, but I was happy to sit and read after I got my trips sorted out.

This temple ruin is from the the third century BC and is just outside of Rhodes main town.

The other amazing thing about it being Easter was how the Christian people there celebrate it. We didn’t get to see any of the Good Friday or Easter Sunday processions, but on the second day in Rhodes Town, we were greeted by palm leaves strewn across the archways and fantastic paintings on them.

Just one of the images used with palm leaves.

Unfortunately for my husband, the hotel had a second trip that we didn’t know about until we got there which did the other coast of the island. Now, this took me to Kameiros which I had read about and was determined to see. It was a trek of a day, travelling between many many little towns (which really showed how the inhabitants really live) up and down into hills (didn’t help my headache), but I loved it. I consider myself quite fit, but walking to the top of that hill so I could look down on the remains of the ancient city, did take the puff out of my lungs!

Ancient Kameiros was possibly destroyed by a large earthquake in 142BC

I loved so much about the island of Rhodes – the view from my balcony of the sea beating down on rocks, the little walk to a rocky outcrop for some “rock-climbing”, to the ancient and slightly newer sites, the food and the quietness of being off season. I’m so glad that I’d already set my heart on visiting more Greek islands and my fingers are crossed that Crete can live up to the memories of Rhodes.

The lowest point on the Western coast - Monolithos and a sheer drop!

I’ll be in another all inclusive hotel, just outside of a little town which apparently has a nice harbour (Rhodes Town harbour) where I can perhaps try and eat an authentic little Greek meal because AI isn’t always that great. I don’t need a beach that’s swimmable, but one that has character and something unique about it – picturesque – is important. Funky chairs in the bar area is always fun and the sites of Knossos, Phaestos and Gortys could easily rival Lindos and Kameiros. Lastly, Crete has some of the best flora and fauna, I’ve read, so maybe I’ll even persuade the husband to come walk a gorge with me. What’s even better is this year I’ve opted for May – trying to balance the quiet of April with a bit more of the sun from July/August.

I realised the other day, when thinking about the date and the day, that I can remember the last time December the 10th was a Saturday, the 12th a Monday and the 14th a Wednesday, etc, etc.

The days of a month should repeat every 6 years, possibly fewer if two leap years fall into the period. 2011 has followed the same days as 2005 did. How do I know this? Simply because it was six years ago that my then-boyfriend had a birthday on a Friday, my last day in a job that had driven me insane but I do now miss, that I started a new job on the following Tuesday, the day after one of my friend’s father’s died. I honestly can’t believe it was 6 whole years ago.

I’m not sure why the memories are so much stronger this year when most people remember dates and therefore remember them every year, but I don’t usually remember that my friend’s father died a few days after my now-husband’s birthday. Perhaps it is because I was walking to work thinking about his birthday this year and wondering when it last happened on a Friday. It was also possibly triggered by a random sailor who cycled past me in his little hat and pristine uniform, reminding me of how I used to love seeing the then-boyfriend in his uniform. Okay, seeing anyone in military uniform.

A flood of memories came back to me: Trying to do a day’s worth of work when my boss had no intention of letting me stay past 10, having the commanding officer talk a Marine Colonel into carrying me from my office in some grand “Officer and a Gentleman” routine with me mortified that everyone was watching, including my then-boyfriend. Oh, and then I had to walk back into the room, red as a tomatoe. For some reason, despite the number of times I saw my now-husband in his uniform (we worked together for a year so I saw him every freaking working day), that day sticks in my mind and I can see him clearly in his uniform more so than any other point. Perhaps because it was his birthday. Perhaps because he was on leave, but to enter the office building he had to be in uniform and he did so just for me.

I remember leaving work and then spending the rest of the day with him, unsure of how long I could keep my work-pass which my boss should have taken, but then I would have had to be signed in to visit the boyfriend. It wouldn’t have been a problem, it just would have meant more walking!

I can remember cancelling a call late at night a few days later as my new job started the next day. Little did I know until I read the text the next morning that a friend’s father had died moments before her call to me. I spent a large portion of the next day feeling awful and having no one to talk to as I was on day one. Does my friend realise that this year, the anniversary will be on the same day as the original? Whether normal or not, I barely remember the date my dad died, but I do know it was a Sunday.

Then I remember attempting to learn how to perform a pH test on soil (the simplest of tests we used to run) on my first day of work, and worrying about getting around to see my friend. There are no memories of seeing her, or getting to her house, but I can remember walking home from seeing her on… a day.

Looking back on those few days, I was starting a whole new chapter in my life — finally working in “science” and analytical science, too. I loved the two years I spent there and it gave me the skills to (so far) not have to go back to office work. I had to give up working closely with my then-boyfriend, I had to move away from home, I had to stop swooning at men in uniform and I could leave behind people that had made my working day horrible.

At pretty much the exact same time, my friend was starting a whole new chapter in her life — one without her father in it and one where, an increased closeness with her male friend led to a new relationship and and second son for my friend.

That week was the first time I’d celebrated the then-boyfriend’s birthday and it was when my friend’s Merry Christmases died.

How things change in just 6 years and how we can get to the brink of about to forget something and then it snaps back in.

I was in your net, fighting for air,
With each struggle brambles cut,
And ripped through to my core.
Scarred and bleeding, you set me free,
Left me to flounder and to die in the sea.
Yet I survived, strengthened,
Once out of your clutches.
My roots grew strong and free of the thicket.
Shoals of fish swim by,
Following even to their death,
If you hadn’t have freed me,
You’d have taken my last breath.
I still see your face despite the wounds healing,
Once bitten, twice shy and I still guard my heart.
The autumnal tree loses leaves one by one,
Until Winter has come and they are all alone.
You were never a Saint,
Perhaps neither was I,
But there was more to my future
Than ever met your eye.
Live your life as you see fit,
But when Osiris weighs your heart,
Will you be as free and as happy,
As you helped to make me?

As part of Monday Memories, here is a relatively recent poem which I wrote during a train journey that felt as if I had travelled back more than ten years in time. I’ve done the exact journey many times after that time of my life finished, yet it was last month that the memories were more vivid than usual. Some of the station names are hidden in the verse, can you spot them?

Via Flickr:
Similar to a previous post of “Olivia“, not only did I name all of my ornamental hedgehogs when growing up, but also my family’s Christmas Tree decorations. This is the only one I can remember the name of – Annie – and it is today’s Monday Memories! Isn’t it amazing how something as small as a few wooden tree decorations can evoke such wondrous memories of your youth? Every year I used to open the box and “play” with the family of ornaments: The two soldier boys would march on up to the tree, there was another girl who ice skated there. And of course, Santa was everyone’s father.

We no longer have the same tree, and some of the ornaments have been lost along the way, but there’s still enough memories there. Including from the ornaments held together with sellotape and blu-tac! I even went and bought my own for my own tree, but they’re nowhere near as good as the originals. Which Christmas ornament holds the greatest meaning to you?

Persephone's Musings

Sometimes, I take photos. Sometimes, I write poems. Sometimes, I just blabber on. I've dealt with loss and desire for the mundane. Most of the time I work through it. Or I photograph it. Or write a poem about it.

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All poetry contained within this poetry blog is property of Muse Persephone. Images linked from Flickr to here are also copyrighted to Muse Persephone unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved and any reproduction of the works within is strictly prohibited.